Nice Dream
by keeponwritin
Summary: A look inside Joey Jeremiah's head.


A/N: Yes, I continue to write bizarre one-shots that suck.

This takes place in season 3, episode 11 ("Holiday").

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When he leans his head back to take the first swig from the bottle of his second Molson Golden, his brown eyes wandered upwards, towards the golden banister leading to the second floor. He watched the hostess lead the way for the man in the navy blue suit, holding the hand of a woman whose whole back was exposed in her long, slinky dress. Even stepping up the stairs, she seemed to sashay like Jessica Rabbit, and for only half a second before they turned to the right after the stairs could he see their matching smiles. The guy was tall and had a full head of hair, and the woman was brunette and just a touch too thin, but he imagined it was him turning that corner towards an intimate table for two, a table small enough to reach across, with that flickering candle in warm red glass between them. _Joe_. The hand-holding, the simple but loving glances. It had only been four years. _Joey._ This would mark his fourth Christmas without her.

"Joe!"

With a start, he looked back down to his table, to the woman to his left who'd been digging her deep purple nails into his arm to get his attention, to no avail. He was met again with Sydney and… Sydney's smile, the smile that always looked like it would rather not be there at all. He loved her, he was sure, but he knew her smile would never exactly light up a room.

"Joey, this is Bryant Seybert and his wife Arlene. Bryant, Arlene, this is Joey Jeremiah."

Across the table diagonally from them were, Joey suspected, Bryant and Arlene, the couple only now taking their seats. Bryant was tall, bookish, with glasses. Arlene, too, was tall, gaunt, with a hook nose, and, like Sydney, a kind of unpleasant smile. While the Seyberts were seeming more interested in settling in their seats, Joey had stood up, extending his hand across the table. When they noticed, they both looked a little startled, but half-stood up and shook his hand, one by one. He smiled congenially and spoke clear "nice to meet you"s towards both of them, but when he reached towards Arlene, farther away, he came within inches of knocking over Sydney's glass of chardonnay. "Joey, watch—" she started, but he managed to lean back towards his seat just in time to save it. She clutched her hand towards her chest, which just made Joey grin more. He opened his mouth to tell her to relax, but he was interrupted by Arlene addressing the entirety of the long table of 12 people—including 5 of Sydney's work associates and each of their significant others. There was a comfort amongst all of them, save Joey, the newcomer.

"You'll have to excuse our lateness," Arlene boomed, stopping the side-conversations happening on both ends of the table and turning everyone's attention towards her. "This one," she tugged on her husband's arm, "insisted on firing the last babysitter, so we had to brief the new one. Though I can't say I blame him. Our son had his girlfriend over while we were gone and the last babysitter didn't even try to stop him. Can you imagine?" She laughed to herself, and the rest of the table, though silent, seemed to agree that this was wholly unacceptable. Joey laughed and smiled along, too, with a perplexed glint in his eye.

"Your son has a girlfriend?" Joey piped up, after 15 seconds of silence from the table. "How young are kids getting started these days?" No one else seemed as amused as he was, and he could feel Sydney's reproachful stare, but he thought this was a very valid question.

Arlene was just bordering on offended but not quite there yet, only giving thus far a slightly disapproving smile. "Our son is thirteen."

At this, Joey had trouble keeping in his laughs—not meaning to offend, just highly amused at this fact. "Wait, you're saying he's 13 and he has a—" A particular harsh and painful squeeze to his left knee stopped him from finishing his sentence. Both the Seyberts were looking at him with displeased expressions, and had their attention not been taken by the sommelier, Joey would have been forced to mutter some very uncomfortable apologies. Before Sydney could silently scorn him, her attention was stolen, too, by one of her co-workers next to her.

This was a world Joey Jeremiah knew nothing about. For once, it wasn't about wealth. Everyone sitting at this table with him was just as middle-class and ordinary as he was. True, he slid towards the lower end of the chain (especially in recent years), but these weren't people talking about their private jets and hiring Yo-Yo Ma to give their toddlers cello lessons. The hiring of babysitters was a problem Joey had been very familiar with, with a 6-year-old girl of his own. But it was the tone. Joey didn't have that tone, that tone that said "I'm better than you and that's why you should respect me." Every soul at their table had that tone, except for Joey. Sydney, even, had it, but it was what made her such a good businesswoman. He didn't hold it against her.

Much.

He knew that Angie needed a real mother figure, and that would include being a mother who could discipline the girl when she got out of hand, but Sydney had a habit of being just a little too harsh. He was starting to think maybe he didn't even need a disciplining mother—he thought himself pretty good at it. Maybe she just needed a nice mommy who could be home with her more, play dress-up and play with Barbie dolls.

It wasn't all about Angie, either. Sometimes he wasn't even sure he could deal with all of the pressure of just living with such a perfectionist, when perfectionism was the opposite of what Joey Jeremiah had always been about. Joey Jeremiah had entered into the adult fold rather reluctantly. Though he loved Julia, with all his heart, becoming a dad at age 23 hadn't been in the plan. They were in love and they were flexible, so they just went with it, but he still yearned for youth, for still acting like they were in university. He thought he could still have keep some of the fun, after all the diaper-changing and waking up at 3 AM, because they could always get a babysitter and enjoy the occasional night out, or he could request a guys' night out and Julia would approve. He didn't expect to lose these luxuries just three years later. He didn't expect to lose the love of his life, the woman that, despite his immaturity, he'd wanted to spend the rest of his life with, eventually have more children with. He'd lost Julia, just like he'd lost every other female that came into his life. He couldn't help but sit at the funeral and think that he would've lost her anyway.

And then, at the ripe age of 28, he made the decision to adopt a 14-year-old boy. His stepson, a boy he'd barely known, a boy he'd virtually ignored for the 7 years he'd known him, and he was taking him into his home, feeding him, clothing him, promising him a future. It seemed so easy and so obvious at the time. It was the right thing to do, taking him away from his abusive dad, and conscience trumped immaturity. But it wasn't long before he found out that being a teenager and parenting one were two very different things. At first, he wanted to be Craig's friend; he felt like he at least owed it to him to be cool and loose and free when he'd dealt with an asshole like Albert for so many years. He couldn't, though. He knew teenage boys and he'd been quite the teenage boy himself. Girls, cars, his buddies: at 14, that was all life was about, and he shouldn't have been even a little surprised that Craig cared more about those things than the rules. So Joey yelled and he disciplined, but it stung a little when he had to do it looking back into Julia's eyes.

When he thought about it, he needed a Sydney. She kept some order in the Jeremiah household. Angie liked her (most of the time). Joey loved her. He glanced to his left, watched her still chatting with her friend about work (nothing he could exactly jump in on), then glanced around the table—everyone was into their own conversations. He almost wished he'd just brought along Caitlin.

But that… that was crazy. That made no sense. Even just as friends… he already had a date. His date was Sydney. He just had to start getting used to outings like these, to the talk about… real estate to the talk about people's middle-class woes. Even if he knew that talk about Caitlin's work would be so much more interesting, that Caitlin could engage the whole table instead of these splintered separate conversations. It didn't mean he was confessing his undying love for her. He'd been through the ringer with Caitlin Ryan more times than he could count. And Sydney didn't even know about the engagement, or Tessa Campanelli, or any of that. And even with the limited information of "she's my ex-girlfriend," she'd built a wall around herself and Joey to keep Caitlin out. It was uncomfortable. He had to have Caitlin in his life. She was so worldly, so smart. Sometimes he thought that she'd someday realize what a loser she was hanging with, and run off to the other side of the world without him. _Joe._ But there was a bond between them. He felt it. He knew she felt it, too. It didn't necessarily spell romance, just a connection, a feeling that they were indelibly linked together for the rest of their lives. That didn't necessarily mean romance, did it? That could just be friendship. Deep friendship. _Joey._ He just felt protective of her, protective of their friendship that had managed to span over 3 decades. How they'd managed to date and break up so many times, to fight over things over things of a gravity most people never knew, to get engaged and to break it off yet still, years later, feel no discomfort in inviting her over for a tree-trimming celebration, to chat over eggnog about Christmas plans. It was surreal. It was dreamlike. And if things were different, if the circumstances were just right..

"Joey?" Sydney's nails were digging into his arm again. He looked up to see her tight smile on him again, then the waiter standing behind them. She knew when his head was somewhere else, and she seemed to be gazing suspiciously at him in hopes that she could read his thoughts. "It's your turn to order."

Tonight was going to be a long night, but lucky for Joey, he'd had plenty of long nights.


End file.
